A cancer treatment flaw?

Student's project among five from Marian selected as state science competition finalists.

Student's project among five from Marian selected as state science competition finalists.

October 25, 2006|JIM MEENAN Tribune Staff Writer

A question worth studying at Marian High School is which is more impressive, five students making it as finalists at the Indiana Science Talent Search contest or what they discovered in their research? Either way, you can make a strong case. The five students ---- all seniors ---- are Jamie Scott, Paul Baranay, Deanna Lind, Sara Niedbalski and Emily Cook. "It was really our best year ever, a bunch of good kids," Ken Andrzejewski, teacher of Marian's science research class. The five Marian students will be among the 14 statewide -- including four from Adams High School -- presenting their findings this weekend in Kokomo. Perhaps most impressive is Niedbalski's project, titled "The Influence of Reference Power on Calorimetrically Determined Thermodynamic Parameters." Her work has helped her win $80,000 in scholarship money already in her career on the two-year project. "My project discovered a significant flaw in a piece of machinery that analyzes compounds that are used for making cancer-fighting drugs," Niedbalski said. "It's a very popular machine, so a lot of people are using it for when they are making these drugs to fight cancer. And they are using it to determine what compounds are good as far as pursuing or making drugs." She contends it could be affecting results of tests on compounds that are used to fight cancer. "And the data being produced by this relatively new machine was in many cases very incorrect," she said. "So basically it was hindering the medical companies that are processing these drugs." Brian Baker, University of Notre Dame professor in chemistry and biochemistry who helped her with the project, says Niedbalski did great work. "She really looked at very fine details and was really able to understand what she was doing and what the implications were. She really knew what she was doing and was able to talk about it far beyond people at her educational training." However, Baker cautions against calling it a flaw. "It's a parameter when you change and modify it and tweak it, the effects are not really understood," he said, saying Notre Dame is indeed looking into doing a paper and more study that could back up her findings. "Her results confirmed a suspicion we had for many years that this instrument in configuration software, set at a somewhat arbitrary position, what you measure will depend on what this is set at. "It's not really clear how things vary when you tweak that parameter," he added. "These are really detailed measurements." Her findings were met with skepticism by the company making the machine. "Me being a high school student, they would not listen to anything I had to say," she said. She believes corrections need to be made regarding the machine. Baker says it's too early to say. "We are talking real detailed stuff here," he said. "It's not a case where all the science done with the machine is wrong, but you could be led astray depending on what your experiment is with and how detailed it is." Niedbalski's studies at Notre Dame, funded by the National Science Foundation, were aided by Notre Dame's Kathryn Armstrong. Of course, she was not the lone star at Marian. Here's a look at the other four winners. -Paul Barnabay's topic was "The Anti Carcinogenic Effect of HDAC (Histone Deacetylase) Inhibitors on HDAC6." HDAC's cause cancer, explained Baranay, and HDAC inhibitors stop HDAC, which basically stops cancer. He used computer techniques to prove something chemically that had already been proven. "The actual chemistry has been done," he said. "I confirmed it using computational techniques because those show us what's actually going on inside the molecules." -Jamie's Scott's topic was "What are the Environmental Effects of Rural and Urban Ponds on Daphnia Magna?" Scott took the water samples from various ponds in the area and then tested them for phosphate, nitrate, ammonium, dissolved oxygen, and chlorine concentrations Then she put five daphnia magna (water fleas) in each sample and recorded the births, deaths, heart rate, and other realities. For Scott, it was her first time earning such an honor in science. "It's like really rewarding," she said. -Deanna Lind's topic was "Verification and Characterization of Mutant and Wild Type BRCA1-pCR3.1 Constructs for Expression Studies." The aforementioned constructs have been genetically linked to breast cancer. "I cut the BRCA1 constructs with restriction enzymes in order to determine the sites of deletion within those genes, because the next phase would be to express those genes and see what proteins are made by them," she said. "Because the BRCA1 gene produces a specific protein that halts cell growth, so if it is malfunctioning or it's not there, cancer results because the cells are growing out of control and cause damage." Lind worked with Bethel College professor Lynne Cary on her project. "It's quite exciting," Lind said of being selected. "I was very surprised." -Emily Cook's topic was "The Fabrication and Testing of a Luminescent Oxygen Sensor." Cook built a sensor that you breathe into, she said, and it's hooked up to a spirometer and condensation filter and sensor that she also built. "The actual readout tells you a voltage number and I go through a series of calculations and I can tell you how may calories a person burns in a given period of time." Counting four Adams students, the South Bend-Mishawaka area has nine selectees of the few who were chosen statewide. "It's a pretty big honor that there are only 14 of us in the entire state," said Baranay. "And I also think it's a great indication of how strong a research university Notre Dame is. That's where I worked. I could not have done this by myself."Staff writer Jim Meenan: jmeenan@sbtinfo.com (574) 235-6342